. Walked a lot through town, wandering through all the corners I knew but didn't remember, lazing around in the parks, speaking to the people in the street...

It's getting hot now!!... Summer is coming strong now, 30-35 degrees but there's wind amd trees. More than anything you see it in people's attitude: just walking slowly, dozing off in the shadow of trees in Parque Forestal, sitting on benches watching life pass by... The downtown is quite strange though: it's a blend of nice neighborhood with very old houses and a rundown marketplace where they sell cheap quality, expensively priced and completely useless stuff, and now with Christmas close by, even more. The ugliest and most ridiculous object imaginable are on sale...

Did a couple of day trips to Valparaíso and to Isla Negra, the house Pablo Neruda hasd on the coast. Valparaíso is a bit odd: it's a city oriented towards the port, but for some reason surrounded by hills and with the city growing upwards, and that's where the real life is. So you have these very old elevators made of wood (can't even be called funiculars) that take you up to those hills, which have everything from marginal slums to regular residential neighborhoods... The nicest things are up there: full of very ordinary houses, made of aluminum, but painted in the brightest colors

. The result is quite odd but very striking: looks like Caminito in Buenos Aires, but in neighborhood version, always uphill and full of half bohemian half elegant half simple (you never know which one in the end) restaurants and bars. It's a curious mixture, but what's nice is that is doesn't feel custom made for the tourist, it simply is. It isn't flooded with tourists, but not with locals either... it's sort of a city to yourself... The rest is horrifying, specially the port. Isla Negra isn't the most amazing place, but it's quite odd and unique: it's Neruda's house placed in a beautiful place, on a beach full of boulders, against which the waves break furiously. The house is on top and the great thing is that the guy didn't have a traditional idea of architecture or decoration; he simply built it bit by bit and filling every possible corner with all sorts of the strangest things: nautical instruments, African masks, old pharmacy bottles, wooden mermaids from ships... And on the terrace he had a boat, where he sat to drink, so he could get off and say he'd been seasick 'cause he'd been sailing... the guy liked his drinks.

The curious thing: it's incredible to see how divided the country is with the Pinochet affair, but only on paper. In reality nothing is happening... life goes on, people as if nothing happened. That is, if you ask them, they'll speak about it, tell you what they think, but there are no signs, no crowds, no riots, no posters, nothing... The only thing happening was that they discharged the grandson of the guy, a coronel, who gave a very controversial defense speech at the funeral. Instead the newspapers don't stop publishing articles, interviews, everything you can possibly imagine.... so it's strange because people aren't speaking about it, but they read about it all the time. Is it some strange sort of avoiding being public about the topic, since it's all so divided? And that division is also odd; I thought nobody still thought in terms of right and left, communists and non-communists, but people here speak of both as if nothing ever changed. So it all determines everything: if you're against Pinochet it's because you're left, if you attack Allende you're immediately a supporter of the other one, if you claim human rights you're Allende's supporter and if you don't you are blind to what happened, and so on... no middle terms, no staying on top of the fence...